Tag Archives: children’s fiction

Your short story Five Degrees From Happiness is in Australian Literature: A Snapshot in 10 Short Stories. What can readers look forward to in Five Degrees From Happiness? Five Degrees From Happiness is a story about a young woman and … Continue reading →

Your short story ‘Fallen Angel’, in the AusLit charity anthology Humanity: A Short Story Collection, deals with bravery. I was always a puny kid. Still am. So big, chunky heroes never really appealed to me but rather the small, well, … Continue reading →

People have been telling short stories ever since prehistoric accounts of memorable hunting trips were painted onto cave walls. A good short story doesn’t contain a complicated plot and too many characters; instead the focus is on one main concept … Continue reading →

Why did you choose to write children’s fiction, rather than other sorts of fiction? I’ve always been a writer. In my twenties I scribbled down stories that were freakishly similar to those I’d enjoyed as a child. Stories filled with … Continue reading →

Your Ranger’s Apprentice series starts off in a fictional medieval setting with the main character, Will, wanting to train to be a knight but getting rejected because he is too small. So he becomes apprentice to a Ranger, Halt. You … Continue reading →

You are Associate Publisher of Children’s Books at Random House Australia. For those unfamiliar with your role, what does that involve? I receive manuscripts from agents, from authors who I work with, and via our query submission system, and I … Continue reading →

You have written that you cannot churn out children’s picture books on demand, as you can with other kinds of books, because you need inspiration: “I need something to stir me in some way and as I believe good picture books … Continue reading →